About the most worthwhile thing in R.T. Kendal’s book Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979) is the following quote from Rutherford on eternal justification:
‘justification in God’s decree and purpose from eternity, is no more justification than Creation, sanctification, glorification, the crucifying of Christ, and all things that fall out in time; for all these were in the eternal purpose of God.’
Samuel Rutherford, Survey of Spiritual Antichrist (1648), ii.19.
p193
Along the same lines good Mr Durham says the following:
It is true, God’s purpose and decree of pardoning sin, is Eternal, as all the decrees are; But this actual pardoning of a sinner is no more from Eternity, than his creating or glorifying men, yea, in the same decree, he hath proposed the giving of both Repentance and Pardon, in the method laid down.
Commentary on Revelation (rept. Old Paths, 2000), 316
I’ve long been meaning to post on Durham and ‘eternal justification’ as he takes the opportunity to dissent from the idea a few times in his writings. Maybe at some point I’ll find the time to write a post on it…
James Durham Thesis 